Are my fears rational? They are ruining my life so Im starting to question if they are

[Emiley]

Hello my name is Emiley and I am 22 years old. I have just recently decided to look for help with my ocd for the first time because the thoughts are making my life miserable.  My o.c.d. started when I was young and progressed throughout the years. It has however  completely controlled my life for the past 3 years.  It started to get pretty bad when I was about 16. I cleaned for hours, counted, arranged items.  Nothing was ever clean enough.  I check things repeatedly and constantly worried about everything. Even though I checked the unplugged iron about 5 times or more before I left.  Those sorts of worries have always bothered me but the last 3 years it has gotten much worse. I have developed the most horrifying fears of becoming contaminated. They keep getting worse.  For example, I found out that the new girl I worked with had dormant tuberculosis, which is not contagious when it’s dormant.  Yet, I was so scared to go to work. I had obsessive thoughts of catching it and having to be quarantined for a year in order to take medication.  I ended up quitting my job of 1 year that I loved.  When I found out the girl had left, I explained my worries to the manager so they let me come back to work.  Except, this did not end.  I am still so afraid of catching something horrible that I cannot enjoy life anymore.  Another one of my fears, which I think sounds crazy, is cold sores.  It all started when I went to hang out with one of my good friends one day.  I had been friends with her for a while and I had remembered a time when we had shared a drink.  This day, she had a horrifying red sore on her mouth.  She tried all night to cover it up with makeup as if it was the most shameful thing ever. I kept thinking over and over, what about that time a month ago when we drank out of the same soda. I thought about it obsessively.  I had images of catching the virus. It gives me horrible nightmares and panic attacks. From that point on, if I hung out with her, I was always so afraid she would accidentally spit on my mouth while she was talking to me and I could catch the virus. I read in a medical journal that a cold sore is the exact same thing as genital herpes except you  are getting the outbreak on your mouth.  I also read that it causes herpes of the eye.  For example, if you touched your cold sore and then accidentally rubbed you eye.  And scariest of all, I read that a simple cold sore causes 25% of genital herpes cases. So anyway, when I got home from hanging out with her, I would worry about it all night until I felt physically sick.  I would try to reassure myself over and over that she didn’t have a cold sore and she never took a sip off my drink but I was still so worried.  I decided I was too afraid to hang out with her anymore and I started making excuses whenever she called me to hang out. I had given up a friend because of my irrational fears that controlled my life. If I go to work and someone has a cold sore, I am scared to touch anything because of the possibility that they could have touched it and gotten the virus on there.  I now consider getting a sore on my mouth the worse thing that could ever happen in life. I would die than to face something so horrific. I see more and more people with them and it causes severe panic attacks.  If I set my drink down I leave it unattended and I think that there is the possibility that one could have drank off it, I throw it away.  Lately, I've been able to hang out with that friend again. That is a huge step for me, but I am not better.  This is still an irrational fear that runs my life.  As much as I realize that it is irrational.  I still believe it is definitely something to fear, but I know I need help.  I went on vacation last summer, and I and my boyfriend stopped by his grandparent’s house on the way.  She had a red spot on her lip that looked like a sore, so when she kissed him on the cheek, I worried the whole vacation that he would catch her horrible disease.  I let it ruin my trip completely. I felt like I couldn’t breathe.  I can’t explain a worse feeling of fear than that.  I kept thinking how she is in her 70's and she still gets outbreaks on her mouth.  It seems like the worse thing that could ever happen.  The worse kind of contamination. So this is my fear. This is the worst my o.c.d. has ever gotten and it has been unbelievably scary for me for the last 3 years.  Does anyone have any advice or know any truth to the horrifying things that I read in the medical journal.  Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks emiley.